Hallowe'en Head

I guess I was a space-cowboy on Hallowe'en. The Fence party we were at had a sci-fi / wild west theme that made dressing up slightly less daunting. Forgot my camera like a chump, so here's a quickie to give you the idea. A complete TON of green facepaint does not wash off easily at 3am.

The party was good fun. We mucked around playing dolly-dress-up for so long that we missed a few acts I really wanted to see. Some folk went all-out with the costumes which, quite frankly, should be the norm. I want to see glitter and glue at Hallowe'en, not pre-made superman suits.

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Giveaway (give us a minute, eh?)

Hello. A very quick message about the giveaway - I have been delayed in announcing the results. Ah, sorry pal. Don't worry though, I've collected together all the entries and everything will be done and dusted tomorrow. Promise. My excuse is a long, elaborate tale of missed-trains and last-minute deadlines that would honestly make a pretty decent movie. Anyway, what did you expect? I'm giving away free stuff for God's sake.

Also, thank you very much to everyone who entered and to everyone who tweeted / posted about this. I appreciate it greatly and I'm a little embarrassed that I can't start the week with a bang. Tomorrow's announcement (with full-on video) should hopefully make up for it. Well, to those who win something at least.

If I have pissed you off beyond comprehension, leave a comment below. Otherwise I'll presume everyone couldn't give a monkey's.

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Headless

This was a little thing for Illustration Friday that never really went anywhere. The topic was 'ahead'. I didn't have the time to finish any of my ideas so I'm sitting it out this week. Ah well.

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Old Camera

This old camera belonged to my gran. It sits on my shelf in a little leather case. I can't remember ever seeing it in her house and I can't remember it being given to me. It just arrived there. I imagine it took a lot of the photos I've seen of my mum, my aunt and my uncle. I don't know if it still works. If it does, I don't know how.

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Garage Door

Sometimes you just draw a garage door.

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What I Wore Today 7

Today, for What I Wore Today (in drawings) I decided to try out something a little different than my previous silly entries - tracing!

Ever since being taught at school that tracing was a very bad way of learning how to draw, I've left well alone. I always viewed it as a bit of a cop-out. Not quite cheating, just kinda being a bit lazy. Recently, however, I've been really loving a lot of work that uses tracing. It has this great mixture of reality and wonkiness that can be really odd and interesting.

So, I had a little go. It's not quite what I was after, but I kinda like it. As with anything (like magic or dynamite), it can be used for good or evil and it's something I intend to explore more thoroughly. I guess tracing it a bit more of a slippery slope than some other techniques in that, should you rely on it too much, you're gonna screw up your brain. It is the cocaine of the drawing world.

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Self-Portrait With Double-Chin

For the third day in a row, the sun is shining. It's beautiful outside. Birds are singing, bees are buzzing.

Having missed out on 99% of the sunshine over the weekend because of work, I've decided that today, I'm going outside. I'm going to play on my skateboard like a child. I might even buy a nice ice-cream (a nice-cream). To alleviate some of my guilt about taking an afternoon off to fanny about, I set myself a couple of simple tasks. The first was rather dull and email based (completed in record time!), the second was to draw a little picture for my blog.

So, there we go. A self-portrait with a double-chin.

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What I Wore Today 6

My sixth little drawing for the Flickr group What I Wore Today (drawings only). Click for big. I actually wore this gear yesterday but unless I told you that, you'd never know. The great Oz has spoken. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

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What I Wore Today 5

Another little drawing for the What I Wore Today (in drawings) group on Flickr. As illustrated, I'm a little under the weather after a weekend in Anstruther at the Fence Homegame. I'll hopefully get a post up about that soon along with some snaps from an impromptu trip to Newcastle.

On another topic - I've recently been using Twitter with a lot more frequency than I used to and, without beating about the bush, I'd love some more followers and some more people to follow. If you're down with the twit and would like to keep up to date with my brain, check out my profile here: @davidgalletly.

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Sanyo

Whenever I finish a drawing, I play around with the colour in Photoshop. It messes with my head how many options there. Too much choice. Having said that, I'm in a bit of a rush and my noodling on this little radio has been limited to making the lines a bit blue.

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What I Wore Today 4

Another drawing for the What I Wore Today (in drawings) Flickr group. This one is really quick. I've been drawing a lot recently and, as often happens, everything is getting smaller and tighter - and not necessarily in a good way. The more I draw, the more I tend to pile on the detail and the process can get kinda tedious.

As a result I felt like drawing something a bit silly. Yeah, it's not the best thing I've ever put to paper, but a scribble was called for. Check out that Flickr group for some good stuff by other people.

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Zine outtake

I'm trying not to upload any images from the little zine I'm making until it's done. This is a page I knocked together that probably won't make the cut, so I'll put it here rather than let it go to waste. Something tells me there might be a few more outtakes to come.

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Adidas Campus Vulc

I recently got a pair of these from the new Adidas Skateboarding range. I'm not planning on skating in them for a while (my shoes work their way down a ladder until they become a 'skate' pair) but for chopping about, they're pretty fly. This is a doodle from my sketchbook that I've coloured in Photoshop. The laces are a little wonky but nevermind, it was just a quick wee thing.

Drawing shoes always takes me right back to high school art class. Every week, without fail, we'd forget to bring along some still life objects from home and therefore would need to rummage around our bag for something decent to draw. On failing to find anything, we'd reach under the table and clunk our trainers up on the desk. Our group churned out more stinky Airwalks, Vans and DCs than you could ever imagine.

I.F. Wilderness

A really quick wee last minute thing for Illustration Friday. The topic is wilderness. I had intended to draw some vast detailed landscape, full of texture and colour but, y'know, time got the better of me. These were a couple of trees I doodled in my sketchbook when thinking up some ideas.

Ba-Ba-Baby Steps

Here's a little attempt at a comic. It's a rough for the first four frames of the Redcap thing I talked about previously. It's not great, but it's a start.

I definitely have some kind of 'comic block' that I'd like to overcome. I'm rarely happy with my attempts and I find the whole process quite stressful. Not that I have any particular ambition to be a comic dude, but there's a few ideas in my pockets that it might be nice to get down on paper without wanting to blow my brains out.

Redcaps and Comics

Recently I've been toying with the idea of drawing some comics. I've found myself doodling little characters, trying to find something that might work. Man, it's tricky!

Getting my head around even a simple strip completely blows my mind. There are so many things to consider regarding composition, detail and consistency that it can start feeling like a chore before you've even started. How should characters and backgrounds overlap? Does it matter if a chair looks different from one frame to the next? How do you handle different 'camera' angles? - look at Shultz; he kept Peanuts side-on for 50 years, he barely even zoomed in. Visually, there are so many decisions to make, without even considering little things like stories, titles, names and dialogue.

Of course, that's getting ahead of things considering I've only doodled a few wee men on some scrap paper. The guys above are inspired by the mythical 'Red Cap', a dangerous spirit creature that haunts the Scottish borders and dyes his hat in the blood of his victims. Not quite Garfield, but fun to draw.

Pattern

A late little doodle in my sketchbook for the Illustration Friday theme 'pattern'.

I tried drawing the pattern from my shirt for this one. Instead of the more straightforward criss-crossing lines method, I treated each little box separately and drew them one at a time. As you can see, it went all wonky pretty quickly. I think I'm going to have another go at this, perhaps with a different shirt.

On a related note, I just checked wikipedia and discovered something I didn't know. Technically 'tartan' is just a name for a pattern made up of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands. Wow. I always thought it was something more specific related to the fabric. I guess this means with the current boom in checked shirts (plaid to our American friends) you can legitimately say things like 'I'm going to Topman for a tartan shirt' and be correct. You'll sound insane, but you'll be correct.

Twig

A twig.

A Wooden File

Daily Drawing 4: A wooden file from Ikea

Not much to say about this one.

Self Portrait

Daily drawing 3: Self portrait (smiling)

Another daily drawing challenge. I'm working on something else so it's another quick doodle I'm afraid. This is the first picture I've drawn of myself in years.